Healthy habits during first trimester

SingRunTing

Hi all,

I need some help.

I'm currently 7w+3 and really struggling with nausea and fatigue. I need to eat every hour or I start getting nauseous. I'm also having really intense food aversions and can't seem to stomach anything healthy. I'm really trying, but all I want are carbs and beef.

I'm also so tired. I'm an avid fitbit user and have my fitbit add calories to my goal. I normally get 10-12k steps a day, but right now I'm struggling to get over 4k.

Without the movement, I just don't have the calories to support the amount of eating I need to do to stop my nausea. I'm open to suggestions. Advice would be appreciated!

sardelsa

Congrats on your pregnancy!

My advice would be to go with the flow.. eat what stays down and listen to your body. First trimester can be rough so don't put too much pressure on yourself. Once the nausea subsides and you are feeling better and have more energy (usually sometime in second tri) then you can worry about eating better and keeping active.

You can try ginger, crackers and Sea-Bands to help the nausea but nothing really helped mine until it started to subside around when I was 16wks or so

enterdanger

I was sick like that with my 1st two kids and have fatigue with this one like you wouldn't believe. It really is a waiting game for the most part, but here are the few things that helped me.

1. Eat upon waking. I'm not a breakfast person, but if I ate immediately I felt better all day. I would keep crackers on my night stand and eat some before I even got out of bed.
2. Don't get overfull...that is a recipe for puking.
3. Hydrate - Water used to give me awful heartburn with my 1st 2 kids. However, being dehydrated made my nausea way worse.
4. Sleep matters - The more tired I am, the worse the nausea is. If you need to sleep 12 hours a night, do it. Sleep is the most important thing right now. That goes away around 14-16 weeks.
5. Coke. Not the drug, the soda. 3-4oz of regular coke, especially in the afternoon when I feel the worst makes a big difference.

It will get better, probably. I got rid of most of my morning sickness with this one around 14 weeks. If I don't eat right away in the morning though, I still get sick all day and I'm at 18 weeks.

ashliedelgado

All the advice above, and one thing I would suggest is that if you feel up to even just walking around the block - DO IT. The more active I was, the better I felt. And sometimes, feeling up to that 3 minute commitment led to longer walks. Like, wow this feels pretty good I'll go another block.. three blocks... etc. I never had much problem with nausea, but I have heard that eating a little bit before you even sit up in the morning can be helpful.

enterdanger

Oh and I forgot to add....I can't have hot and cold in the same meal. Like if have a cup of hot tea at breakfast I can't eat cold cereal or yogurt...gotta have something warm like toast or oatmeal. I'm not sure if this is a real thing or just me being neurotic. It's totally a possibility this one is in my head.

ashliedelgado

I actually learned from a pediatrician that I work with that morning sickness is totally a first world problem. It simply does not exist in developing nations. And not like no one talks about it - it just doesn't occur. So, enterdanger, there may definitely be a psychological aspect to how bad the first trimester is for some women

lesleykc

Just like @ashliefisch mentioned above, the best thing you can do is convince yourself to get a little bit of movement in, even if you'd rather do absolutely anything else. All good advice above from @enterdanger too! Eat as soon as you get up in the AM and stay hydrated. I found my energy stayed up the more I moved, but I admit, I was never nauseous for more than a day for either of my pregnancies, so I didn't have a sick tummy or excessive fatigue to battle with to start.